White Beauty Blogger Under Fire for Posting Blackface Photos

A white beauty blogger is under fire for posting an incredibly racist “chocolate challenge” on her social media platforms. Vika Shapel from Portland, Oregon, who markets herself as a “self-taught” makeup artist, started a lot of trouble by posting her and her friend in blackface.

She captioned one of her photos of her and a friend in half blackface, “Something fun is coming to YouTube, idk if there is a challenge like this but we haven’t seen it so I’m calling it the chocolate challenge!” She went on to post, “Come watch us transform into deep chocolate skin tones from our pasty pale.”

Unsurprisingly, the backlash came very quickly after Vika Shapel posted her photos from the “chocolate challenge.” Tons of social media users ripped into her for her racism. Black Twitter came alive with their responses berating her for being a racist.

It appears she was shockingly not prepared for this outcome. She claims to have no idea what blackface was before all of this. Whether or not you believe her, Vika Shapel has since deleted her social media accounts and, along with them, deleted all of her racist posts.

Yahoo Beauty reported that Shapel said, “I simply wanted to see how I looked in a deeper skin tone.” She is also quoted as saying, “I wasn’t aware of the whole black-face concept before people began commenting it on the photo. I would like to apologize to people that were hurt or offended by my post, and it won’t happen again.” Hopefully, there aren’t many others out there as ignorant to their racism as Vika Shapel.